Beloved Osho, Could you speak to us on laughter, its meditative powers, its chemistry on the brain, its power of transformation and healing… Its relation to silence, the gap, clarity, vision…

Its contagiousness, its relation to different emotions… On homo ridens – the essential human condition, on how to recognize true, authentic laughter from hysterical, exhibitionist, or hypocritical laughter, on how to be a channel of pure joy?

Prem Nistal, I have just been talking about laughter, its meditative powers and its medicinal powers. It certainly changes your very chemistry; it changes your brain waves, it changes your intelligence – you become more intelligent. The parts of your mind that have been asleep suddenly wake up. The laughter reaches to the innermost part of your brain, to your heart.

A man of laughter cannot have a heart attack. A man of laughter cannot commit suicide. A man of laughter automatically comes to know the world of silence, because when laughter ceases suddenly there is silence. And each time laughter becomes deeper it is followed by deeper silence.

It certainly clarifies you – from the traditions, from the garbage of the past. It gives you a new vision of life. It makes you more alive and radiant, more creative. If you are a singer, your song becomes more celestial; if you are a musician your music starts going beyond sound, starts reaching silences. If you are a sculptor, then your sculpture will not be what Gurdjieff calls objective…

[…] Two things to be remembered: one, you should not bother about others. You should not judge. There is no way to judge from outside whether the person’s laughter is authentic or not, healthy or hysterical; exhibitionist, hypocritical, or real, coming from the very deepest sources of his being.

So first thing, don’t be bothered about the other person. It is uncivilized. Just think about yourself, that’s enough, and then the distinction it not difficult.

The authentic laughter is not about anything. It is simply arising in you as a flower blossoms in a tree. It has no reason, no rational explanation. It is mysterious; hence the mystic rose.

The hysterical laughter is sick. It is about somebody else; it is not healthy and it is not going to give you all the benefits I have talked about. It is insane.

The exhibitionist is one who is laughing just to show others, but the laughter is not coming from his being. It is just superficial, social. If everybody else is laughing and you are not laughing you are being a little unsocial.

They say that if you tell a joke to an Englishman he laughs twice: once just to be social, just to say that, “Yes, I understand.” And the second time in the middle of the night when he understands it.

If you tell a joke to a German he laughs only once, just to be social. The second time to laugh never comes. He never understands a joke.

And never tell a joke to a Jew, because he will stop you in the middle. He will say, “It is all rotten, an old joke, and anyway you are telling it all wrong.” It is useless to tell a joke to a Jew – he will not laugh. He will even make you sad – why did you talk to this man?

Different nations will behave differently. But one point you can understand yourself: whether you are laughing just to be in tune with others… then laughter is only exhibition. You have not understood the joke and you are laughing – it is hypocritical.

But always remember not to judge others. That is very primitive, uncivilized, inhuman. Only look at yourself.

A patient in the hospital accidentally has a bowel movement in his bed. Not wanting the nurses to find out, he bundles up the sheet and throws it out of the window.
It lands on Kowalski, who is walking in the street below. After a fierce struggle Kowalski disentangles himself from the sheet and goes into a bar to calm his nerves.
“My god,” says the bartender, “you stink!”
“You would too,” replies Kowalski, “if you had just beaten the shit out of a ghost.”

In a remote part of the countryside, a young farmer and his wife are delighted when a Martian couple land their spaceship nearby.
The young farmer invites the Martians to stay over dinner. They all become so friendly that they decide to exchange partners for the night.
The farmer’s wife and the male Martian are getting ready for bed when she notices that he has a very small prick.
“What do you think you are going to do with that?” she giggles.
“Watch,” he says, twisting his right ear. Immediately the prick grows to twelve inches long, but as thin as a pencil. Then he twists his left ear and the prick becomes as fat as a sausage. They enjoy a wonderful night together.
The next morning after saying goodbye the Martians take off. The farmer turns to his wife, “So, how was it?” he asks.
“It was fantastic, really out of this world,” she says. “How about you?”
“Nothing special,” admits the farmer, “A bit weird, in fact. All night long she kept playing with my ears.”

A man has his prick amputated in a car accident. As an experiment the doctors graft on a baby elephant’s trunk instead.
Some time later he goes out to dinner at a French restaurant. He is sitting there with his date, when all of a sudden the baby elephant’s trunk sneaks out of his pants, scoots across the table and grasps a bread roll and then disappears again.
The girl does not believe what she has just seen and says nothing. But a few minutes later, while they are talking, out pops the baby elephant’s trunk, scoots across the table, grabs another bread roll and vanishes.
“My god,” cries the girl, “what was that?”
The man is extremely embarrassed but finally manages to explain the whole story.
“That is great!” exclaims the girl enthusiastically. “Can you make it to do it again?”
“I would,” says the man, “but I don’t think I can fit another bread roll into my ass.”

Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.

Osho, YAA-HOO! The Mystic Rose, Ch 30, Q 2 (excerpt)

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Why should any discipline be imposed on you? – Turning In, Ch 8

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Time exists because we cannot see clearly. It is just as if you look out onto the street from the keyhole. A man is coming but you cannot see him. Suddenly he is there – but he was before. Suddenly he disappears again – he is still somewhere but your keyhole makes it difficult to see. Your keyhole creates the past, the present and the future.
Just a moment before the man was not there, so the person who has never left his keyhole will think that the man has appeared out of nothingness. That’s what future is. And when the man has gone a little further from the keyhole you cannot see him, and now you say that he has disappeared into the past.
The past is that which you cannot see any more, and the future is that which you cannot see yet.
But the man was there, is there, will be there. It is your key-hole that has created time. If you can come out, then you will see that the past was also present, the present is also present, and the future too, is present. Only the present is. Only now is. But remember the present is not part of time. The present is timeless… eternal.
Time is a concept because we are looking through the mind. The mind is the keyhole.

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